I woke up early, at 8am, to find a place to take Jack to be quarantined. My mom's vet said they offered that service, so Jack and I made the trek over there. It's really not close. I mean, mom lives 15 minutes from me, but this was 15 minutes in the opposite direction from her. Jack was hiding behind my legs while I filled in paperwork. The woman was like "where's the dog?" and I was like "he's right behind me," so she looked again and went, "goodness this tiny thing is supposed to have hurt someone?" You see my point. She said usually when they have dogs for quarantine it's like boxers, or pit bulls, or dobermans. She's never had a 15lb dog in for quarantine before. She had to physically drag him away from me, which I'm afraid hurt him because she had one of those leashes that just loops over the dog's neck and tightens on his neck instead of attaching to a collar. But eventually he started walking and I cried as he went away.

I came home and went back to bed, but I never managed to get back to sleep. Miss Darden, from the PRRC called me to find out how I was doing a month past graduation. I told her about Jack, and that I was worried the guy might try to sue. She gave me a number for legal aid which will work with you depending on your income. I think we have lawyers we've paid for through Kevin's work, though, which we've already paid for if we need them. Miss Darden said she'd call me again closer to graduation day to see if I wanted to be in the ceremony, but she's done calling me for check ins. I can call her if I need her though, and she made sure I had her extension. I can also call them if I want tickets to something they may be able to get them. I almost missed her call. I saw that the VA hospital had called me, but I assumed it was a reminder for my Thursday appointment. Well, then I got the reminder call for the Thursday appointment, and thought it weird that they would call me twice, so I checked my voicemail, and was pleased that it was Miss Darden.

I rolled out of bed again at noon since I decided I'd eat lunch before golf. I ate a peanut butter sandwich and cried when I got jelly on my computer, and no one immediately shoved his head in there to eat the leftover jelly. Then I went to golf, where I hit approximately 25 shots on the driving range, almost all of them rolling pathetically along the ground and not going up in the air at all. This was a special day at golf because Hines Ward, a super bowl MVP for the Steelers, was there. He works for CNN now, and the head people from CNN all picked a charity to spotlight on the channel between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Well Hines picked BlazeSports, so he was out there today playing golf with us. Because of this after an hour we moved onto the course. Kevin the instructor (as opposed to my Kevin) went with me, and picked all my clubs and helped me track the balls (I kind of lose them in the sky and can't remember where they fell...). I hit my first shot 100 yards, which, yanno, is 75 yards longer than I've ever hit anything before, but after that I was just hitting balls rolling along the ground again. But here's a picture of me with Hines Ward.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to actually play golf instead of just staying on the driving range. And the area we were playing in was very pretty, although they had lost over 100 trees in the recent tropical storm we had. We only played 3 holes, and then we went in for dinner. We had sandwiches and potato salad (and salad, but with caesar dressing so I couldn't eat any).

I came home and spent some time with Kevin. Rogue REALLY likes the borg cube she got from this month's loot pets. Like, we were squeaking that plus her previous favorite toy, and she was picking the borg cube every time. She also woke me up with it a few times, which normally she doesn't do that with toys. So I guess I'm glad I didn't give it to Jack to destroy, but I feel kind of guilty that I didn't give him any kind of a toy. Then I kind of kidnapped Rogue and locked her in my office with me. The cats are in here too. Aaron is curled up in Jack's usual spot, but Aggie is hiding in the closet. She did spend some time against my chest though.

I think I've made two decisions that might help my sanity. First is that I'm going to intentionally write 0 words in October. Hopefully that will get me over my burn out and I'll be able to start November strong and spit out a novel for NaNo. The other decision is that in November I'm going to count every word I write - even words in this blog, even though they aren't fiction. I just... I don't think my brain will let me push on in any other way. At any rate, I'm still planning to go to write ins on Tuesday and Thursday nights in October, I just don't plan to write. I'll have my laptop and internet connection, so I mean, I can do other things on the internet while I talk to people at the write ins. Maybe I'll start counting blog posts already in my word counts.

I looked at the weather report in order to make the title of this post and found that it is still supposed to be over 90F on Wednesday when I was supposed to go to the zoo and work as a greeter. I decided to cancel that, and sign up for a shift in October when it will be in the 70s. We're supposed to start getting more seasonable weather on Sunday (hey that's my birthday!). That means high 70s, and still not sweatshirt weather, but at least it won't be 90 out anymore. I also signed up for a shift at the aquarium on the day of Red Tower, which I guess means I'm not going to that, but I was kind of leaning towards not going anyway. They're not having any classes. I guess this means my next event is Jour D' Amour in February. I'm alright with that. I don't need to go to a million SCA events anymore. Honestly, the meetings are more fun, and archery practice lets me shoot things monthly, which really if I wanted to shoot more often than that, I'd go to Sol Haven's archery practice, or I'd go shoot archery with BlazeSports every week. Clearly, I don't want to that badly. Although honestly, I may ask Bill if there is teaching at archery, because if I could get someone to watch me shoot and tell me "this is what you're doing wrong," that would be kind of good and I might consider waking up early for that, at least a few times.

Speaking of BlazeSports, swim team is this Saturday, which, I'm sure the Jews on my list are already seeing the problem - it's Yom Kippur and since I skipped out on Rosh Hashanah, I really feel like I ought to go. Also I signed up to go to the break the fast after services. Because I can't make it this month, and didn't make it last month, I cleared out my schedule for next month, which meant cancelling an aquarium shift (which is why I added the one on Red Tower - I need to be going twice a month to get my guest pass next year). I need to be doing a better job of getting hours at the zoo, too, but honestly, it's hot, and I don't have khaki shorts.

I got an email today that my 3rd volunteer gig, the reading to an elementary school student, is set to start on October 3rd. So hopefully that will go better this year. That seems kind of last minute to be telling me about it, but I guess it is what it is. They still haven't told me what time I need to show up. I'm hoping for some time in the afternoon, because my poor little brain.

Sunday is my birthday, and that means talking to my aunt and trying to convince her just to get me amazon gift cards, while she comes up with a million things I absolutely do not want and says, "what about this? what about that?" I think we finally settled on socks. Hopefully she doesn't find a way to fuck that up, but she was already trying to convince me on socks that stop at the ankles pretty hard, which I will never wear because I hate socks that stop at the ankles. Honestly, I appreciate that she wants to buy me a present, but I don't understand what her thing is against buying me what I ask for? My parents make things easier. I send them a link, and they order it. My sister will get me an amazon gift card. That's all the presents I expect.

I've been listening to the radio to try to find a song to add to my collection on the first (I always add a song to my collection on the first of every month. It keeps me up to date with modern music and stops me from getting too bored with the music I have). Unfortunately, I really don't hear anything new and clever this month. Does anyone have any suggestions? (Send youtube links!) I like pop, hate rap, and really hate rap in my pop. Some favorites include Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Pink, and Lady Gaga. I particularly like listening to songs with a good message.

Today animal control came to our house and told us that the delivery driver complained to them that our dog bit him. Although it was clear that he had not been bitten and had just sustained a minor scratch, because he claimed he had been bitten there was nothing anyone could do, and our dog has to go to quarantine, at our expense, for 10 days. This happened once to my mom's friend and it cost her $300. I don't have $300 lying around! I mean, yeah, things just got a bit better with Kevin's promotion, but not enough better to take a $300 hit our first half-month of it. We're still playing catch up. There are two trees down in our yard since the hurricane, and we can't pay to move those, we both needed new tires because of nails that had them completely flat, and we put that on a credit card we can't pay off, And I just don't know what to do.

Kevin is busy writing negative reviews of his employer. I wish I thought they'd get him fired.

I'm fighting off panic at the price tag, and anger that the animal control agent said he clearly wasn't bitten but there's still nothing they can do and anger that he is slandering my dog (but my dog probably does not have legal standing in a court to sue him - which Kevin won't let me consider doing anyway). And desperate sadness because my dog is going to be locked away with no one to love him, and he's not going to understand why he doesn't have even his sister with him for the first time in his life. And I'm afraid if he's in quarantine they won't be able to let him go outside throughout the day. And basically, my poor dog, who did nothing but try to make a friend he thought was playing with him.

Otherwise, I was supposed to go to the zoo today for gorilla day, to do arts and crafts activities with kids. I emailed two people to ask where to meet and neither of them got back to me, so I didn't go. I did wake up to check my email on time to have gone, but I didn't go. I'm really annoyed about this because it means I either need to spend more time in flamingo plaza as a greeter, or I have to find other events to sign up for. I should probably look in next month to see when these events might be. Yeah now I'm signed up for something called "Boo at the Zoo" on the 21st. If I don't get enough hours by then, I'll finish up then. It's by the orangutans which I actually know something about having studied them as an anthro major in college.

I don't remember if I mentioned this here or not, but 23andMe is doing a study of people who have been treated for either depression or bipolar disorder, and in exchange for your DNA they'll send you a free ancestry and health report. So I mailed off a vial of my spit to help with that study and find out whether I should be chasing this Polish guy or the English guy on ancestry.com. There are also rumors in my mother's family of some Native American ancestry, which it will be interesting to find out of that is true or not. If you've been treated for bipolar disorder, you can click here to get in on the same deal I did - but time is running out. The depression study is already closed.

I opened a loot pets box today to see if I'd get some kind of a toy I could send with Jack to quarantine, but Kevin wound up really liking the toy inside it (which was a borg cube), so we gave it to Rogue, who will not destroy it instead of Jack, who will.

Astrid May for a girl, I don't know about a boy. Kevin likes the name Astrid, and I do too, but it's really his choice. May is my middle name, my mother's middle name, my grandmother's middle name, and my great-grandmother's middle name. So it's really important to me to keep that.

I woke up just in time to eat breakfast before I had to leave. Today's adventure was the zoo event. I got to the volunteer check in table and they sent me to the room where the mascots would be dressing so I could guide around a mascot. I waited until an hour after my shift started, and the guy for the flamingo costume never showed up, so I went to get Sarah, who told me to just go in and enjoy the event. I talked to one of the docents somewhat about the elephants and their plans to expand the elephant area and maybe get a bull so they can have baby elephants. This led into talking about pregnant Qinu the beluga at Georgia Aquarium.

There were stations to get wine, beer, and food all over the zoo. I wound up getting one cup of sparkling mango wine, and then eating the food. It was good. I couldn't eat two of the things because they had seafood, but I got some steak, and a piece of a taco and some donuts. I discovered that it's impossible to see the gorillas with wheels - there just isn't a ramp onto the observation platform. So that made me sad, especially as there was someone with a microphone talking about gorillas up there, and I would have liked to listen.

I wound up watching the elephants for a long time, and the sun bears, and the pandas. The sunbears were clearly distressed that it was past time for them to be off exhibit and behind the scenes doing whatever they do there. They were pacing in front of the exit to their exhibit and occasionally jumping up on it like "let me in!" I kind of understand - it was 90F and they're black bears. But they're from Malaysia, certainly they should be used to hot weather? The tortoises were off exhibit with a sign that said "even Atlanta can be cold to a tropical animal. Check us out starting in late spring" - did I mention it was 90F out? Certainly that's not too cold for anything that has an outdoor enclosure in Atlanta?

I started driving home, and Kevin called to tell me he'd ordered me dinner from someplace we'd never eaten at before. So, I came home to dinner, and when I answered the door, the dog ran past me, and jumped on the guy with the food. He started jumping and screaming, which of course makes the dogs think he wants to play, so they're jumping and barking too. I collect my dogs and my food, and start to close the door and he's out there with his pants leg pulled up yelling "ma'am, ma'am!" so I peek out the door and he says "do you have the peppers?" I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about and he keeps gesturing to his leg asking for peppers. I finally say, "I have no idea what you want," and he says, "fine then I'll call the cops!" Since there was not a mark on his leg anywhere, and I have no idea why he wants peppers unless maybe he wants me to pepper spray my dogs, I tell him, "you do that then," and kick the door closed. Why do people who are afraid of dogs take jobs as delivery drivers? Honestly, get a job as a cook or something where you don't have to interact with people or dogs if you're afraid of dogs. Anyway, I'm seriously stressed out because I don't want him to report my dogs to the police.

I don't recall ever having a crush on anyone I knew in person, because I seem to have always recognized that that way lay sex, and I wasn't interested. I did have a celebrity crush on Jonathan Brandis, and his character Lucas Wolenczak from seaQuest DSV, which was probably my first and only crush in a way that you'd actually think of as a crush.

I woke up at 2 this afternoon because Kevin woke me up taking a shower. He was working from home and apparently decided the way to deal with this was to wake up at the moment he had to be at work and then take a shower on his lunch break. We got subs from Jimmy John's which I was able to shove in my mouth just in time to walk out the door.

Stop one was my therapist's office. Traffic made me a little late, but since it was apparently a 60 minute appointment instead of my usual 30 minutes, that was fine. We talked about goals, and talked about writer's block. She basically wanted me to look at what I have accomplished instead of what I haven't accomplished.

I came home and talked to Kevin for half an hour before heading out to my father's house. I got to my father's house a little early and he was in the shower, so I entertained myself with his dog until he was ready to go. Tonight's adventure was the Temptations and 4 Tops concert. Of course it's more like Temptation and 4 Top because only one man survives from each group, and they've filled their ranks with younger men. I thought the concert was alright, but the 4 Tops for some reason were singing everyone else's songs. I mean, I know you could fill an hour with 4 Tops hits, but for some reason they played Mack the Knife, and My Way and several other songs that I didn't even know that weren't their songs. My dad was pretty disappointed, and he wasn't alone - people were leaving the concert in droves. Our entire aisle emptied out before the end of the concert.

I got home at midnight, and talked to Kevin for an hour since the dogs woke him up barking when I walked in the door. I immediately took my meds, as I had forgotten both at lunch and dinner (since I never ate dinner), and I was starting to go into withdrawals. I'm still clenching my jaw and pretty uncomfortable, though it's starting to get better.

This week's Friday Five comes to us from LJ user juke128, the letter F, and the Roman numeral V.

1. What's the happiest thing to ever happen to you?

2. What's the saddest thing to ever happen to you?

3. What's the thing that got you the most angry in your life?

4. What's the most frightening thing to ever happen to you?

5. What's the most unbelievable thing to happen to you in your life?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DW or LJ. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so please feel free to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**

The bad decision train left at 4am, with me too tired to stay up until noon, and with too little sleep available to wake up at 11, so I didn't get to temple this afternoon. I did temporarily wake up at the appropriate time, but then I was like "there's no transliteration in the books and you stumble too much to say the prayers, so you won't get anything out of it anyway, and you'll have to park across the street which will be a hard and painful walk and your back will hurt before you even start standing up to pray. So I talked myself out of it and went to sleep.

Kevin called at 11 and said he was done with work for the day because he has to work Saturday. Then when I woke up at 2 he still wasn't home. Apparently he called Brian and wound up going out to lunch with him, and decided I wouldn't know because I'd be at tmeple, so he didn't tell me he wasn't coming straight home, and I was very nervous by the time he came home. Now he has two days of working from home, plus he gets to get off early on Friday (next Friday I think not this Friday), to make up for the hours he did work today.

We talked a little bit, then I went to Panera to meet Tia and Klepto. I wrote over 1000 words on my Star Trek short stories, and then started reading DW for about half an hour because my brain was just not having any of it. My brain had better get over this not having any of it by November because I'm relying on a successful NaNoWriMo to finish my goals for the year. I think it'll be better when I have a novel I'm writing instead of the short stories. I hope.

Came home, read LJ, read my bat mitzvah portion over again - the first half of it came easier, the second half came harder for some reason, even though I know most of the words in the second half of it. Read my Bible, and generally prepared for the end of the day.

Anyway, Shanah Tova to the Jews, and Happy Mabon to the pagans, happy Friday to the rest of you.